The field of the disclosure relates generally to processing payment transactions initiated by a cardholder over a payment network, and more specifically to identifying fraudulent payment transactions conducted over the payment network based on social media data associated with the cardholder.
Fraudulent payment transactions impose significant costs on users of a payment network, including merchants, banks, and individual cardholders. Accordingly, known payment networks often employ fraud prevention systems to flag or deny potentially fraudulent payment transactions. For example, payment transactions originating in geographical locations outside the cardholder's typical location, e.g., foreign countries, have an increased probability of being fraudulent, and may be flagged for additional verification. In another example, known fraud prevention systems may identify fraudulent payment transactions based on detecting multiple substantially simultaneous payment transactions performed with the same payment card in varying geographical locations. For example, if a payment transaction is initiated with the same payment card in New York and Los Angeles within a short period of time (i.e., an hour) at least one of the payment transactions is likely to be fraudulent.
However, currently known fraud prevention systems are often unable to identify fraudulent payment transactions due to insufficient cardholder location data. Authentic cardholders may frequently travel from their current geographic location to distant locations, and may only intermittently utilize their payment card. Accordingly, known fraud prevention systems may have insufficient cardholder location data to positively identify whether the authentic cardholder may have performed a particular payment transaction. Accordingly, known fraud prevention systems may deny authentic payment transactions and/or authorize fraudulent payment transactions. For example, a current fraud prevention system cannot determine whether a payment transaction initiated in New York is fraudulent based on a payment transaction in Los Angeles if more than a certain amount of time has elapsed, e.g., ten hours. In such a situation, the cardholder may need to manually verify his location to the payment network, (e.g., by calling the payment network) inconveniencing the cardholder. Alternatively, known systems may allow the payment transaction to proceed, increasing the risk of fraud.